Monday, 28 December 2009

Granddaughter Abigail's first Ballet award ceremony. She gained a distinction for her ballet exam, and was awarded a beautiful trophy for the most improved student in her year. It was definitely a night to celebrate.

During the Christmas holiday Abigail [age 6] managed to make a Christmas hanging for her mantlepiece, using my featherweight to sew some of the points and sewing on the bells by hand.

Anyone that knows me, will know this is the nearest I will ever get to cruising.. I cannot stand anything on water, but the SS Gt Britain is a restored ship in dry docked at Bristol. Chris seems to think he's a First class passenger, and I'm ready for lunch!

Stash busting in 2009 seemed to go to pot half way through the year, I was doing well until a local trader decided to sell up her fabric and I bought far too much!

I will again join Judy Laquidara's stash busting group in 2010 and have to try and use only fabrics I already have. Two reasons, One is my cupboards are full to bursting, Secondly I need to save hard for an exciting trip to Wyoming, the Tetons and Yellowstone later in the year.

Does buying fabric in a different country count !! Like eating chocolate when away from home does not have any calories!!

Thursday, 29 October 2009

7pm Sunday evening an almighty BANG and all our Electricity went out, a car had run up the path at the end of our drive and demolished the Electricity Cabinet and lamp standard, smoke poured out and then it caught fire! The female driver was out of the car. Police and firebrigade arrived and questions were asked!! The electricity finally came back on at 3.30am the next morning as engineers worked through the night to clear up the mess and dig up the pavement.

It is now Thursday and we have huge holes in the pavement around our house but the power is back on. I think the police took the woman away probably to breathalize and question her! Next doors car was hit in the accident and looks like a right-off! A tree is now half burnt away and 3 or 4 dustbins melted into blobs of plastic.

As it is half term, my granddaughter Abigail came to stay for two days. Age 6 she loves to do craft work with me, so we organized a Christmas quilt. She traced the pictures onto Heat n Bond Heavy then cut them out and ironed them onto fabrics herself under Grandma's watchful eye!I think it may have been the first time she had used an iron by herself.

Having arranged the snowmen and trees and ironed them to the background fabric I machined around the edge with batting in the middle.. we didn't have time for her to use the sewing machine.

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Busy busy busy, I seem to be always on the go. BUT I have found time to make this fun Santa, with all his bells. I thought my Mum would like it as she has little sight and the tinkling sound would be nice on her front door at Christmas.This has been the month of birthdays, Granddaughters 6 and 2 years, son Richard, husband Chris, sister Debbie and my Mum will be 95 in 2 days time!

Saturday, 12 September 2009

Friday 11th September as members of GLASS the Green Lane club, we went off the beaten track through glorious countryside in beautiful sunny weather. I must have opened dozens of farm gates, and while I lept out to take photo's Chris enjoyed splashing through the streams.

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

has just started a fuse only FISH block swap through her yahoo scratchingpost group, and I just love these fancy fishes, so I have signed up for "between 5 and 25" just to cover myself, but hope to get all 25 sent in. I will start by spending tomorrow drawing the patterns [all free to download] and then look through my stash for fabric.. at least that way I will still be stash busting! Why don't YOU join me and give Sindy a bumper bundle of fishes to swap for us.

Sunday, 30 August 2009

A few little bags quickly made. The first was for a bag swap, but then I got carried away and could not stop making them... I have 7 more cut out ready to make, I thought they would make great little gift bags filled with goodies.

Sunday, 2 August 2009

Where did July go ? I guess two weeks in Scotland, followed by a week in Cornwall and then a five day trip with our Granddaughter has left little time for updating my BLOG.

First let me introduce you to Lucy.. my "new" car, well actually she is a 19 years old Mazda MX5, and I plan a lot of fun driving her around. I have always wanted a red sports car and had to wait until I am 64 to get one, she is automatic, which is taking a bit of getting use to. The only time I have driven automatics is while on holiday in the USA, so I feel I should be on the other side of the road!

To complete my "mid-life crisis" I have started a diet, let my hair grow long for the first time in years, and moved the walking machine into the house so that I can get fit.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009

Wow. what an exciting start to the day. Postman called at 7.15 am with a USA parcel from my Spring Mini quilt swap. Not only is the quilt wonderful and the machine quilting brilliant, there was also chocolate and FQ's enclosed. Thank you so much Maya.. I love it.

On the left are the 9 completed Baltimore blocks [ from Fatcat patterns]. It has been a struggle to get the machine applique done, but at last they are ready for the next step.. not sure what that is going to be yet!

Sunday, 21 June 2009

Just back from two weeks holiday in Scotland where I tried to find time to make a USA paper pieced star each day. I actually managed to make 11 stars [see photo] of the 30 I eventually want to make. They are from Carol Doak's book 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars.

Most of my time was taken up watching dolphins from the lounge window, I had never seen them in the wild around the coast of Great Britain and three days I managed to watch them. Plus grey seals were lolling about on the beach near our hired cottage. An added treat was seeing an Osprey flying over the Spey River estuary.

A visit to two patchwork shops meant my stash busting is not doing too well this month!

Back home I have 1078 emails in my in box! so a lot have been deleted or I will never catch up!

Thursday, 4 June 2009

I am working on my Baltimore blocks, machine quilting them, 5 completed and 4 partially done.. really want to get them ready to join together.

The chicken pincushion was my swap and went with a length of liberty fabric to Polly auntpollysporch.blogspot.com.

The snails trail quilt was finally backed, quilted and the binding sewn on.. another UFO bites the dust!

Final photo is of the June lottery block sent to Carol Doak's yahoo group..Talking of Carol Doak, I have started to plan making a 30 star paper pieced quilt from her book. At the moment I have the patterns printed and some of the fabric cut out.. watch this space.

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

I have joined yet ANOTHER group.. Carol Doak's yahoo group and find they are running a block lottery. The foundation block on the right will go off to the swap lottery, and when 20 are received the names go in a hat and one person wins all 20.. so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.One reason for joining this group is that many years ago I started using one of Carol Doak's books to make a star quilt of all the USA States I had visited. 26 at the last count! I need to re-start this quilt !!

The table mat on the left is for the Spring swap and features a blue cow, called Daisy, I have used a heat resistant batting and backed it in Christmas fabric to make it reversible.Blue Cow is from a children's TV show a favorite of my granddaughter, and I thought it would be fun. The pattern is one of Mary Mayne's.

Thursday, 30 April 2009

I have just joined two swaps, one with the Quilting Gallery http://quiltinggallery.com/ for a Spring Blooms Mini-Quilt, which I have been working on all day and now just have the binding to hand sew down, then I will post a picture.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

On Tuesday 3rd evening I taught 33 ladies how to do Annie London's coloured trapunto. It was a fun evening and I will be repeating the workshop for the BQS group on Saturday 14th. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and quite a few managed to complete the whole thing in the 2 hours.

RIGHTStep 3 of Bears in the Farmhouse, 12 blocks to this stage just completed in time. Now to work on Step 4 and add borders and join the squares together.LEFTWorked hard today and have Step 4 completed.. have to wait until 25th for the next step.